The majority of knives in homes are sharpened by holding the knife in one hand and an emery stone in the other, and the two are rubbed together in a rather haphazard fashion until it is felt that the blade has been sharpened. The difficulty with this is that the angle of contact between the blade and the emery stone varies a great deal because most people do not have any idea as to what the optimum angle of contact between the blade and the emery stone is. As a result the knife is seldom sharpened in an optimal way.